The big Phil Fish, Zoe Quinn and Anita Sarkeesian discussion thread

Potatoeman

Evac101 wrote: »

Some of the posts regarding harassment and peoples attitude towards it were getting a little too feely for me - I may just be a delicate flower

Some people dont believe the threats as the victims are faning the flames and posting looking for donations but its all to believable unfortunatley given the comunities history.

Reekwind

DeVore wrote: »

Game "journalism" absolutely stinks. The agendas of "identity politics", when they are unchecked, lead to "offence culture" where people seem to LOOK for offence, and also to politically-correct censorship.

I'm sorry but this is completely at odds with the rest of your post. Identifying the problem with games journalism as "identity politics" (by which you wouldn't happen to mean, feminism or the like?) is pretty much the core of GamerGate. The problem is not (entirely) the morons making death threats but the much broader numbers who simply equate a more diverse industry (in terms of journalists, critics, developers, etc) with bad journalism.

If anyone is to tackle the problems of games journalism then it has to be completely divorced from who-sleeps-with-who or combating a perceived ideological enemy. It has to accept that the likes of Sarkeesian are perfectly entitled to make new critiques of games and that journalists are free to explore these angles. It can't insist on rigidly 'objective' reviews. Most importantly, it has to focus on the real issue - money, and its use by publishers and PRs to influence reviews. And (thanks Potatoeman) this victim-blaming of those who suffer abuse has to end.

Until then I remain sceptical about the aims, composition and real objectives of this 'GamerGate'.

gizmo

shruikan2553 wrote: »

It does explain a lot. I used to read joystiq but at this stage every few articles are just "Woman fell down the stairs in France this is similar to what people have been threatening Anita Sarkeesian with"

I suppose its in game journalisms interests to peddle the misogyny side of things.

And yet when Morgan Ramsay actually examined the output of these various gaming publications he found...

Of the 130,524 articles downloaded from 23 outlets in a 12-month period, only 0.41% of those articles referenced feminism, feminist, sexism, sexist, misogyny, and misogynist. Less than half of 1% of the articles published by professional video game journalists for major publications during a 12-month period brought up these more progressive subjects explicitly.

Most of my immediate queries into the figures were addressed in the updated sections further down the page so I'd encourage you to check them out too.

Shiminay

The reactions from the average moron with a keyboard on these topics mean that you simply cannot have an open and frank discussion about any of these issues as it will *ALWAYS* descend into poo flinging monkeys screaming at each other as loudly as possible so they can drown the other side out. You see this is particularly bad with issues of sexism and misogyny - we've got proof of it here on this site - many women were worn down past the point of being able to continue talking because the sheer volume of raw and completely unjustified hostility they faced every single time they tried to talk about it. It's hardly any wonder that fewer and fewer women want to engage in the discussion when there are so many fking idiotic boys without enough of a fking brain to see beyond their own inability to treat those other human shaped fleshy creatures as equals instead of something they're supposed to conquer and dominate.

Some idiots have finally started to understand what that's like, esp on the other side of this particular mess - the entire world is now starting to shout down the pro-gamergate side into ridicule and insignificance because they have lost all credibility, reason and sympathy for this argument whether they realise it or not, they lost it before they even started it because they took a sensible discussion point (ethics of journalism) and built a false narrative citing that as its reasoning which was a very thin veneer to attack one woman and it just ballooned from there.

DeVore

Sorry I didn't mean to conflate them, I meant those as two entirely separate statements.

"Game journalism sucks.


The agendas of "identity politics", when they are unchecked, lead to "offence culture" where people seem to LOOK for offence, and also to politically-correct censorship."

This is part of a complex discussion that no one is going to have because of the undisputed misogyny of parts of GG.

kunst nugget

DeVore wrote: »

Sorry I didn't mean to conflate them, I meant those as two entirely separate statements.

"Game journalism sucks.


The agendas of "identity politics", when they are unchecked, lead to "offence culture" where people seem to LOOK for offence, and also to politically-correct censorship."

This is part of a complex discussion that no one is going to have because of the undisputed misogyny of parts of GG.

Tbf, everyone on both sides are looking to be offended - it's not the preserve of the politically correct in this debacle.

Retr0gamer

Generic Dreadhead

^ My fiancé picked me up his biography book recently on a whim, must get round to giving it a read

kunst nugget

Retr0gamer wrote: »

Isn't this the guy that whipped up a twitter storm against Jan Moir because he was offended by her Stephen Gately article?

Evac101

DeVore wrote: »

This is part of a complex discussion that no one is going to have because of the undisputed misogyny of parts of GG.

I see a lot of posts using the word misogyny* in the context of gamergate, now, while undoubtedly there's a lot of sexism in play, do people feel it's a genuine "fear of women" behind the motivation of the threats and harassment? I had, personally, interpreted it as the usual haters (who had harassed the likes of Phil Fish for years) amending their usual 'hate speech' for a female audience.

So, genuine question, is it misogyny or a combination of sexism with DOTA levels of sh*t talk? (Why DOTA? - because even I've been threatened with rape on DOTA, and I'm a 2m tall pudgy brick house)

* using the dictionary.com definition which is: "hatred, dislike, or mistrust of women."

Reekwind

Evac101 wrote: »

I see a lot of posts using the word misogyny* in the context of gamergate, now, while undoubtedly there's a lot of sexism in play, do people feel it's a genuine "fear of women" behind the motivation of the threats and harassment?

There's plenty of debate about the use of 'sexism' and 'misogyny' and the differences between them. That discussion goes well beyond the very narrow world of this affair.

My own opinion is that in this day and age, when there's no serious scientific justification from limiting women's opportunities (ie, no one seriously believes that women are mentally inferior to men), that most sexism must be driven at least somewhat by fear and insecurity. That's particularly relevant in this case given the vitriol that Sarkeesian's series has encountered right from her Kickstarter. Keeping up that sort of abuse (death threats or no) requires something more than casual sexism. Reaching for a sexist insult is one thing, building up and tearing down this feminist bogeyman is quite another.

But ultimately that's a semantic debate. In these circumstances at least, the terms are close enough to be interchangeable in casual conversation.

Genghiz Cohen

Evac101 wrote: »

So, genuine question, is it misogyny or a combination of sexism with DOTA levels of sh*t talk? (Why DOTA? - because even I've been threatened with rape on DOTA, and I'm a 2m tall pudgy brick house)

I hear LoL is worse.

Generic Dreadhead

Evac101 wrote: »

So, genuine question, is it misogyny or a combination of sexism with DOTA levels of sh*t talk? (Why DOTA? - because even I've been threatened with rape on DOTA, and I'm a 2m tall pudgy brick house)

It sounds more like a combination of A$$holes and Idiots to me, more than sexists and misogynists

Evac101

Reekwind wrote: »

But ultimately that's a semantic debate. In these circumstances at least, the terms are close enough to be interchangeable in casual conversation.

And here we need to disagree - because of my work I have developed a deep seated need for exactness in language*, using the two words as synonyms when they're commonly used to indicate two quite different things, bothers me.

*In my field of work a misuse of terminology can lead to hours of wasted work when you go back and they realise they've asked for a bunch of work on Aa when they actually wanted something done with Ab. Language is important people! The saddest part of this is that I work with teachers in the education sector so I used to expect better. Maybe I should work with scientists - my understanding is that they have a similar viewpoint on it to mine :P

Shiminay

I think you hit on an extremely important tangent to all online discussion Evac - people's grammar, spelling and frankly appalling functional understanding of the English Language is one of the biggest hindrances in effective communication. Terms are being thrown around a lot that people don't actually seem to understand or comprehend at an intellectual level and so they make themselves completely misunderstood and this gets compounded by the other side not seeking to clarify what them mean but instead rushing to point out what an idiot they are because they can't English.

Attack the Post and not the Poster as we say here on Boards. If you see something that you can't understand, don't deride the person who said it and instead say "I don't understand your point, can you try to make it again so I can process your point of view." People have learning disabilities, English as a non-primary language or they've simply fat-fingered their swiftkey on their phone and it's gone off on a gibberish rant on their behalf

Potatoeman

Reekwind wrote: »

There's plenty of debate about the use of 'sexism' and 'misogyny' and the differences between them. That discussion goes well beyond the very narrow world of this affair.

My own opinion is that in this day and age, when there's no serious scientific justification from limiting women's opportunities (ie, no one seriously believes that women are mentally inferior to men), that most sexism must be driven at least somewhat by fear and insecurity. That's particularly relevant in this case given the vitriol that Sarkeesian's series has encountered right from her Kickstarter. Keeping up that sort of abuse (death threats or no) requires something more than casual sexism. Reaching for a sexist insult is one thing, building up and tearing down this feminist bogeyman is quite another.

But ultimately that's a semantic debate. In these circumstances at least, the terms are close enough to be interchangeable in casual conversation.

She was always going to get some nasty comments though as she in one video called gamers misogynist for playing certain games even benign ones. Calling Mario sexist as it has a rescue the princess trope. The tone of the videos is very much talking at the viewer rather than explaining her reasoning.

People can't seem to wrap their heads around the fact that she is coming from a very one sided view point and they need to take what she is saying with a pinch of salt.

kunst nugget

Potatoeman wrote: »

People can't seem to wrap their heads around the fact that she is coming from a very one sided view point and they need to take what she is saying with a pinch of salt.

She states quite clearly where she's coming from at the start of every video - if people can't wrap their heads around that they really need to get their IQs tested.

And I think pretty much everyone on this thread who found her videos interesting has said they'd take what she says with a pinch of salt.

Reekwind

Potatoeman wrote: »

People can't seem to wrap their heads around the fact that she is coming from a very one sided view point and they need to take what she is saying with a pinch of salt.

Obviously. There's no secret to the direction of her critique. The videos are published by a website called 'Feminist Frequency'. Honestly, I thought I nailed this one two months ago.

The actual problem is people who just can't accept that maybe there are different ways of looking at the same thing. Suddenly having a view that differs from the norm is dangerously "one-sided" or 'biased'. Someone suggests that Mario games regularly employ a trope that reduces the female character to an object or victory condition? That doesn't tally with what I believe, ergo they must be objectively wrong, talking down to people and deserving of "nasty comments".

This idea that all analysis has to be 'objective' (ie, that there's something inherently wrong with a 'one sided viewpoint') is just bafflingly immature. It does not exist in any other medium - film, theatre, literature, music, etc are all confident enough to welcome diverse currents of thought, analysis and work. It's only with computer games that the very idea of a feminist critique could spark such a backlash. And this in the 21st C.

I don't know for sure whether this is a case of changing demographics, outright reactionarism or just a prevalent and very immature view of the role of journalists/commentators in culture. Either way, it's getting tiresome.

She was always going to get some nasty comments though as she in one video called gamers misogynist for playing certain games even benign ones. Calling Mario sexist as it has a rescue the princess trope

Have you actually watched the videos? Because at no point has she labelled 'gamers' or Mario as sexist. There are multiple disclaimers in each video to this effect. What she does is examine how games use, and players interact with, troublesome tropes. If this was an analysis of, say, level design across genres then there'd be no problem. But because it looks at gender people are up in arms.

Seriously, sometimes I think that a medium gets the journalism that it deserves. If people can't handle a Sarkeesian then what are the odds of, say, a Benjamin or Adorno emerging?

gizmo

So I imagine this is going to come up soon, probably worth giving it a read before they start back peddling. That being said, given some of the other pieces from this site they probably won't even do that.

ZOE QUINN: “DEPRESSION QUEST DEAD IN THE WATER WITHOUT GRAYSON”

Rather detestable wording aside, it's another delightful example of certain people happily attempting to throw someone under a bus while demonstrating a complete lack of knowledge about how the industry they supposedly care about works. Not only that but despite this whole thing being about journalistic ethics, they've once again decided to focus on Quinn, rather than the journalist in question, for the piece.

Grayson, it seems, was one of a number of beta testers gave some feedback for Depression Quest back when it was being made. He's also listed with a bunch of other devs from various studios, testers from a variety of games and, one imagines, friends, it being the "Special Thanks" section after all.

With one or two minor exceptions, the comments are about as delightful as you can imagine so I'd recommend staying away.

COYVB

gizmo wrote: »

despite this whole thing being about journalistic ethics, they've once again decided to focus on Quinn, rather than the journalist in question

This is the bit that really annoys me. Zoe Quinn can sleep with who she wants. She can give who she wants early access to her games. She can get help from who she wants pre-release. Nothing she has done there is problematic - the issues are created by the other side of the fence, the journalists.

Why exactly the flak is focusing on Quinn I'm not sure, but it highlights one of the many completely contradictory angles of the GG movement.

Like I've said in the past, I fully support the quest for ethical game journalism. But focus on the goddamn journalists who are breaking any ethical codes - it's them at fault.

Shiminay

Now we have Felicia Day make a blog post saying she's been afraid to talk about Gamer Gate because she doesn't want to be attacked and doxxed.

Response: Someone posts her address in public.

Cut its head off and be done with it. Maybe in the future we'll be able to have a sensible discussion about "ethics" but it's never going to happen when this sort of thing's still the first response to another woman daring to open her mouth. Anyone who continues to align themselves with this "movement" after this needs to ask themselves what possible outcome they think they can hope to achieve whilst this sort of thing is being done in their name?

Kirby

That's the internet. It has nothing to do with gaming, sexism and equality in gaming or journalistic integrity.

There are always going to be people out there who do things like that.

Evac101

Not trying to stir here Shiminay but is there any evidence that the person who dox'd her is linked to the Gamergate movement? Like at all? Or are we taking point A and point B and drawing a line between the two without any actual evidence?

In the end I am sick of this whole thing, mostly because people on both sides have become so entrenched that I genuinely don't think that a dialogue is possible at this point. However the white washing of one side and demonisation of the other, while suiting our modern preference for black and white narratives, isn't an accurate depiction by a long shot .

kunst nugget

I think what is really interesting about this whole thing is that it illustrates just how cynical we have become about victims unless they fit into our narrative - both sides looking at the other and view the opposition's received death threats and doxxings as nothing more than desperate attempts at publicity. The sad part is it's probably because it is so easy for some to exploit the notion of victimhood.

Robert ninja

Shiminay wrote: »

Now we have Felicia Day make a blog post saying she's been afraid to talk about Gamer Gate because she doesn't want to be attacked and doxxed.

Response: Someone posts her address in public.

Cut its head off and be done with it. Maybe in the future we'll be able to have a sensible discussion about "ethics" but it's never going to happen when this sort of thing's still the first response to another woman daring to open her mouth. Anyone who continues to align themselves with this "movement" after this needs to ask themselves what possible outcome they think they can hope to achieve whilst this sort of thing is being done in their name?

Who?

Evac101

Apologies if I didn't make myself clear that I have no doubt that threats were made or anything, it's the attribution of those to a specific source without any proof to substantiate it that I have an issue with and which I feel reflects the black & white nature of our attitudes towards these situations.

Also - am I the only geek/nerd/whatever who doesn't bow down at the alter of Felicia? Please tell me I'm not >.<

kunst nugget

Shiminay wrote: »

Now we have Felicia Day make a blog post

Honestly, that post is a tad OTT. The sentiments about what happens on Twitter if you express any support for people are fair enough but crossing the road because you see two guys wearing gaming t-shirts? Puh-lease.

There's a bit of the 'made-up story the priest tells the congregation during the sermon to help illustrate his point' about that anecdote.

Dave_The_Sheep

Evac101 wrote: »

Also - am I the only geek/nerd/whatever who doesn't bow down at the alter of Felicia? Please tell me I'm not >.<

You're not. She's alright, but I don't get the fandom myself (or rather, I get it but I don't subscribe to it myself).

Grumpypants

Shiminay wrote: »

Now we have Felicia Day make a blog post saying she's been afraid to talk about Gamer Gate because she doesn't want to be attacked and doxxed.

Response: Someone posts her address in public.

Cut its head off and be done with it. Maybe in the future we'll be able to have a sensible discussion about "ethics" but it's never going to happen when this sort of thing's still the first response to another woman daring to open her mouth. Anyone who continues to align themselves with this "movement" after this needs to ask themselves what possible outcome they think they can hope to achieve whilst this sort of thing is being done in their name?

Really shows the power of the media to manipulate the public. All those gamers hate women articles are sinking into the mindset of gamers. The old tactic of repeat a lie until it becomes the truth.

I think it's sad that now a gamer can't wear a t shirt with out being falsely labelled a threat and a gamer can't walk down the same street without feeling the need to cross over to the other side out of fear.

Imagine that article was a Fox news viewer who crossed the street to avoid two black men and the reaction to her would be very different.

The failure of the media to address legitimate concerns about their failings and instead deflect with the nasty orchestrated campaign has drawn all the bottom dwellers out of the pond scum they inhabit. Who knew insulting people online would lead to more insults in return.

We now have equally appauling behaviour on both sides male gamers are now all viewed as potential threats and female gamers as legitimate targets for abuse by broken people and BOTH sides are to blame.

wes

Grumpypants wrote: »

We now have equally appauling behaviour on both sides male gamers are now all viewed as potential threats and female gamers as legitimate targets for abuse by broken people and BOTH sides are to blame.

In full agreement with this. Far to many people on both sides who should know better, have pretty much lost the run of themselves, here is prefect example again from Gawker (yes i know I keep mentioning them, but they perfectly illustrate the point):

How We Got Rolled by the Dishonest Fascists of Gamergate

Failing to adequately cover this act of spinelessness was the first big ****-up we at Gawker committed. Intel surrendered to the worst kind of dishonesty, and we allowed it to do so without ever calling it out. So let's say it now: Intel is run by craven idiots. It employs pusillanimous morons. It lacks integrity.

Saying that is the first big **** up is pretty funny considering this:

Gawker’s Unpaid Intern Saga: Do As I Say, Not As I Do

Now here is a story on Gawker complaining when someone else does the exact same thing:

Lena Dunham Does Not Pay

Also, calling Intel employees "pusillanimous morons" and the people who run it "craven idiots", is certainly a clever way to woo advertisers. If I ran a company, I would run for the hills from the entire insane and toxic situation, with far to many trolls on both sides.

Look, Gawker employees acted like idiots on twitter, emulating the worst of the gamergate mob, and are now complaining that it back fired, is pretty funny to me. What did the expect exactly? That the other side wouldn't respond in kind?

Advertisers don't owe them a damn thing, and at this point, I doubt gamergate is responsible for any company stopping there ads on various websites at this point. Why would any company want to be associated with either side of this utterly insane toxic mess? As long as both side continue this foolishness, I think we will see more advertisers get the hell away from this whole mess.